What is a clean and acceptable home to one person may be viewed as an utter disaster to another person. To a certain degree, how a person chooses to live within their own home is up to them and them alone. However, in some circumstances how a tenant lives and how they keep their home impacts other tenants (if condo or townhome), neighbors/HOA, the landlord, and/or the physical condition of the rental home.
There are some tenants who do not “see” or “smell” the problem in their home. Everything from unclean litter boxes, smell of animals, rotting food, unclean laundry, body odors, garage smells, piled junk (or treasure depending on perspective) and everything in between can cause a serious problem for neighbors or the landlord . A tenant is responsible for keeping the home neat, sanitary and clean condition free of trash and debris. Any expenses incurred by Landlord to remedy any violation of this provision shall be considered as an additional amount due and reimbursed by Tenant to Landlord within 14 days of invoice
Some of these cleanliness issues lead to fire-code problems as “hoarding” makes the rental unit inaccessible. Issues like this constitute impaired safety which are explicit grounds to serve a Notice of a Lease Default .
Platinum’s lease imposes a duty on the tenant to maintain the home that they are renting to a standard “ordinary cleanliness”. Of course, the problem lies in assessing what exactly constitutes “ordinary cleanliness”. The phrase is imprecise and open to interpretation. It is one of those things that you know when you see it, but to provide a precise definition that encompasses all of the potential circumstances is impossible. To that end, our experience has been that a judge looks at the evidence of the uncleanliness and basically makes a judgment call about what is “reasonable”.
So, if your tenant in not maintaining the home to Platinum’s standard, what does Platinum do? Platinum will send a lease violation notice ,advising of our concern. We will request the problem be resolved and clarify our expectations and set a timeline with the tenant and in accordance with the default provisions in the Lease. We will cite that part of our lease, referring them to review the terms set in the lease and that we would like the issue to be remedied. We will encourage the tenant to discuss the contents of the violation and in any event let us know if they are having personal problems or issues that may be preventing them from keeping the home in a standard of ordinary cleanliness. If the housekeeping issue is due an inability to meet the standard from a disability, a landlord may have a duty to accommodate that disability and their inability to meet the standard under the provisions of the lease and Tenant Law.
After Platinum sends the lease violation and the cure period has elapsed we will serve a 48 hour notice of entry for the purpose of follow up inspection of the home also in accordance with the Lease. If, as a result of that inspection, we find that nothing has improved, it may be necessary to escalate the matter and arrange to have contractors enter the home to resolve the issue. Ultimately, failure to resolve the issue may result in Lease termination and ultimately an eviction.
Some of these cleanliness issues lead to fire-code problems as "hoarding" m